197. i cant

i am at a stupid point in my life where i care too much about people, to let them live their lives the way that they're living them. I know that its a "learning process" for a lot of people, but i think its stupid. Let me tell you people why. This is my theory: If you grow up knowing what you believe and standing in faith that Gods plans for you are legit, then WHY do you have to go through a "phase" of drinking and smoking? I dont get it. as much as i try to, i dont. I know that everryone has a choice to make about stupid stuff like that, but WHY cant you choose to do the right thing. seriously. I know first hand the hardships of life. My parents got divorced. thats tough stuff, and i tell my life group girls that i had a choice to make at that time. That choice could have been to follow the worldly things like drinking and partying, or to follow Gods plans for me, and i obvs chose to stay planted in church. so i dont get it. You grow up in a healthy home, u really know who you are and STILL you decide to do these things. I know its just a "season" but seriously,this season needs to hurry the crap up and be over, so that the people you are hurting can stop hurting. So that I can stop hurting. I need out of our friendships for real. i'll pray for you, but really at this point, im over it and im done with you.

196. done

Im Done.

 I dont care anymore, and if someone tells me stuff about something you did,

and it doesnt come from your mouth, im ignoring it.

Im NOT wasting anymore of my time.

figure your crap out and then talk to me.

195. seasons

i just want this season in my life to be over. seriously. Im so sick and tired of feeling like this. In all honesty, i have NEVER in my whole life felt this crappy EVER. i just want things to go back to how they used to be. I just want my friends back.

194. life.

I feel like I've written a post called "life" before. But alas, here i go.

it all started when i turned 20. [this was last week.]

Let me tell you people something, i am a real feelings kind of person. when I'm really pumped about something you know, when I'm sad you know, when i don't want to talk, you know. You can always look at me and see my feelings. BUT if you know me really well, you know exactly what I'm feeling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed or anything, but when something happens that I'm not used to i bottle it up.

So, lets back track to the day after my birthday. So I'm 20. And if you saw my last post, you know my feelings about turning 20. i was worried, yet excited. But alas, the day after my birthday i worked, since well that's what i do. i had a visitor that day. And if you know me at all, you know that life has been tough especially with my parents. I'm not saying i have bad parents, because I'm not. I'm actually grateful to have parents because i know people who don't and they have a rough time. But anyways, this visitor turned out to be my dad. If you know my situation at all, you know that i haven't seen my dad for more than 2 min in about 3 or 4 years. So, lets make a scenario out of this. You're at work, then all of a sudden someone tells you that there's someone wanting to see you, and right away you assume its one of your friends. Then you come out of the back room and BOOM your stomach drops, you feel nauseous, and you freeze. The person who you least expected is standing in front of you. What do u feel? scared? anxious? nervous? did u feel like crying?

Let me tell you people. I felt all of those + 1000 more feelings at the same time. It was awkward. i didnt know what to do, or say for that matter. I mean i went up to him and we hugged and he said happy birthday like the right thing to do, and we talked for about 10 min. He seemed sincere, but in the back of my mind im thinking 'uhhh what the crap are you doing here?' It was bad. When i say bad, im sugar coating the amount of bad it was. I felt like i couldnt hold a conversation with him because i hadnt seen him in a long time. It was stressful and hard. Let me tell you people what happened next. So he hugs me and says goodbye because obviously im working and i need to actually work, and then i look at krystal [my co-worker] and run to the back. I wept. like a baby. it was hard. probably one of the hardest things ever.

So, that was the start to a bad week. Then I got sick. I NEVER get sick ever. So when im sick, im actually dying. This brought sucky days, and is still bringing sucky days, because lets face it, i feel like death. I somehow convinced myself that i had strep throat when in reality i was just dying of a head cold. To top this stuff off, ive been trying to hang with my best friend for the past 2 or 3 weeks and something always happens. It makes me angry but feeling like death wont help the situation.

But anyways this leads me to last night. the worst day of them all. i fight with my mom. whenever we fight, it escalates into so much more than the topic we start off with. this time it was about finances, and the ortho having to take off my braces because my treatment cant be finished and just a whole bunch of crap. then it escalates into life, my dad, me moving, school, everything. It was rough. i sat there weeping. When i say weeping i mean legit tears rolling down my face non stop. It was hard stuff. But yenno what? i got my point across and so did my mom. we figured stuff out. She found out stuff that i didnt tell anyone. She found out my heart. and for once that felt good. we were on the same page. Im not saying we are never gonna fight again, because thats life, but i know it feels good to let stuff air out.

I've also had to deal with some crappy situations in my friends lives this past week. Dont get me wrong, i dont hate dealing with this stuff, i hate the fact that i cant do anything to fix it. Lets be realistic here people. Some of my friends have broken up with people this week, and i honestly wish i could tell them the right  stuff, and how to deal with it, but realistically speaking i have never been in that situation, because i have never dated. So im thinking "God, what the crap man? why? why am I the one you're using to speak into these girls' lives? i dont know this stuff. i dont know what to do or say or pray or whatever! im not made for this! GOD WHY?!" But then i realize, that if it wasnt for God, i wouldnt be in these people's lives to begin with. i wouldnt know what to say to make things ok. and you know what, ive realized that i dont have all the answers. God does. He uses me to speak LIFE into the people around me whether or not i know whats going on. He uses me because he knows my potential and he knows my life and how i can help people. He uses me because he TRUSTS me. and you know what, I trust him too. Whether or not i know how to handle a situation, or not, its all God. fo realz.

so you know what people, i know sometimes life is tough. trust me, if you read this you know. But if we keep bottling up all the crap we go through we are never going to let it go. I learned this the hard way. I wasted 4 years of my life bottling up stuff that needed to not have a hold on my heart. So i challenge you. Whats something you need to let go of? and when you know what that is, let it go. Not just "im gonna let it go for a week and then remember it and make myself miserable again" but for real. Let it go. When you let it go, everything feels so much better. Trust me.

and while we are at it, Thanks Becca, Nicky and Sam for being there for me this week. You dont even know how much you guys have helped me out. SO grateful for you guys! Gods potential is huge on your lives. pursue him with all you have, and continue to be the best friends you can be. LOVE you guys fo realz.

-Paula

193. 2 decades old

 how i feel about turning 20 is probs different than how anyone else felt. Hope u either laugh or just laugh at my awkwardness. :)

192. life to the fullest

For once in my life, i am so content with where i am.

let me tell you why.

this past weekend we had our very first "encounter leaders retreat" up in squamish. So, the whole week before i was getting super pumped cuz well, everyone that i know and Love were coming up with me. i knew that going into this i wanted my life to be changed. SO anyways i head up there with the best crew ever. Taelor and Alex, and Melissa and then Becca and Nicky, so u know that this is gonna be a gongshow. So we're driving up listening to Cd's that i labeled "Legit 1, Legit 2 and Legit 3" and to say the least, they were actually legit. We're having a party in the car on the way up. It was swell. Then i get a text from Gabbi saying that we have the best room ever. 3 of my best friends. Gabbi, Nicky,Taelor and myself. Can u say GONGSHOW. Like holy, can this day get any better.
So anyways we finally get there, and its beautiful. breathtaking to say the least. We check in and walk into our room and boom. A king sized bed, 2 TV's a whole kitchen a laundry machine and dryer, a dishwasher a balcony and even a table. It was stocked with everything u could potentially want in your own house. I could literally live there. Then i got so excited. This in my head was gonna be the best day ever. So we go up the elevator to meet up with the rest of our crew, and it was sweet. had a meeting then chilled. Then everyone wanted to grab some food so we all decided on sushi. Jesse threw me his car keys and told me to drive up to sushi, cuz he wanted to go in edmonds buggy. I dont have a license people. but my head was saying no and my mouth was saying yes, so alas. driving in jesse's car up the street. gongshow. haha
OH YEAH the best part ever... NOT. a rumor started that both me and sylvain were dating eachother. woot. best rumor ever.
So we are at sushi and sylvain is sitting beside me and people are just fueling that rumor. its getting me angry, but alas whatever. then we head to the store and buy stuff to make chocolate chip cookies, and ice cream. The guys are jealous and its gonna be great.

then we just chill for a bit and head up to the conference room for whats gonna be an epic night of worship and a sweet word from Koby. When i say epic, its an understatement of the awesomeness that it was. I got to see everyone be vunerable. Even the grade 12's stepped it up. I got to see Matt (nicky's bro) step it up and give God his all in worship. mind blowing. I got to see Braeden and brendyn and sylvain and Becca just feel how much God loves them. It was so cool to just be in that room with 25 of the raddest people i know. Then Koby had his msg time and at the end he got some leaders to pray with us about everything and anything. Thats where i decided that it was time to just give it to God. I went up to Jenna and just told her that i wanted to forgive my dad and just move on. Then she told me something that just blew me away. I personally know that i am called to be a pastor. I know my heart is in ministry, so Jenna told me that she was praying for me during worship and God told her that i would be in ministry. BOOM. REASSURANCE. right then and there i was broken in an awesome way. so i get prayed for and life goes on, and i turn around and see becca WEEPING. i have never seen her in that state before, but i knew i needed to pray for her so i did, and in that moment i felt like her life just changed. it was so awesome.

hmmm then after that we went and worked out in their gym, as a joke, and everyone went swimming and it was fun. Then taelor and i decided to go back and bake cookies, and turns out we had the most hilarious party ever in our room by ourselves. You people would have peed urselves if u saw us dancing haha. we threw in everything from the lawnmower to the sprinkler. SO FUN. then i figured out that i have no idea how to bake, so i just wung it. it was swell. those cookies were awesome and all the boys had one haha. then the real party happened. every girl came into our room and we just chilled. so funny. Nicky then baked 2 HUGE cookies and we put icecream on them and ate it.BEST EVER. just imagine, one giant cookie and 10 girls.

then people decided to go to bed which left the dudes playing man hunt outside and the girls chillin in my room for a bit. Then once nicky cleaned she peaced to go stargaze and brendyn and Jesse came to have some ice cream and we watched Sister Act 2 for a bit then they peaced and me gabs and taelor watched it for another bit and gabs decided to go to bed, so i went and hung out with paul and just chatted for a while. then as i was going to bed a get a msg from sylvain saying he's outside my door, and yea i had to go say night. it was swell haha.

then the next morning we all woke up and me and taelor and alex snuck out to grab some starbucks. It was a good time. Then we had another meeting and yeah from then on it was home time. we checked out, said peace to some peeps, me jesse matt and joel went in one car, braeden brendyn and jonny in another, yaisa and edmond in his buggy, joe raelene and melissa in the last car and we headed down to vancouver. it was fun times we got lost for like an hour but in the end the food was pretty worth it. then we split from matt braeden jonny raelene joe and melissa, and the rest of us went to h&m. it was awesome. then edmond had to peace so me yaisa jesse joel and brendyn hit up metrotown. SO FUN. shopped for a really long time, had some awesome times in the arcade, it was an overall awesome day.

so anyways the next day we had 5 night. legit the best night ever.

but now back to why i am so content where i am. I finally found a peace with my life, i have the best friends in the whole world. Ive seen everyone open up and accept Jesus for all he's gonna do in their lives, ive felt a stirring in my heart for ministry, ive grown closer to people i wouldnt have before, and overall, i am more in love with Jesus than ever before.
oh and i got a secret bf. ;) haha

191.I LOVE NICKY BROUGHTON!

NICKY BROUGHTON IS THE BESTEST IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.She is the best friend anyone could ever ask for.
There is no one else I would want for my a best friend.

There is this girl named Nicky
She really isn't picky
This is why she is grand
Makes me wants to start a band.
I would never betray her,
Of this I am sure.

Her face is as pretty as the stars,

For her I would fly to Mars.

I would catch a Grenade for her

Throw my hands on a blade for her

I'd jump in front of a train for her

I would do anything for her

Because she is a Firework

She can be your Hero

Baby

You know if one day you wake up and you're missing her

And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth she can be

Thinking maybe you'll go back there to the place where you met

You will see her waiting for you on the corner of the street

Cause she's not moving

No She's not moving

If you could see, she's the one that understands me

She's been here all along, so why can't I see

She is be best friend ever

Imma tell you one time

And I was like Nicky Nicky nicky oh

Like Nicky Nicky Nicky yes

Like Nicky Nicky Nicky oh

I thought that she would always be mine

I LOVE NICKY

SHE IS THE BESTEST